A Zloor for Your Trouble!: Lost Sci-Fi Short Stories from the 40s, 50s and 60s (Unabridged‪)‬

Prescott stood to make a young fortune if he could capture a Martian zloor - dead or alive! Was there a catch to it? Only for the hunter!

"Keep my size out of it," I snapped. I indicated with a thumb a little statuette on my desk. "The guy my mother named me after was pint-size too. He got along all right."

He looked over at Bonaparte. "Ummm," he said. "Napoleon was a big name once - but he's only a bust now." 

"Listen, you're asking for a bust yourself. Why don't you run along? I'm busy."

He ignored me, found a chair that had nothing but a few magazines on it, tossed them to the floor, and sat down. "Your name was brought up because you're the smallest professional hunter on Earth. It'd save a few thousand credits in getting you to Mars and back." 

"What in kert are you talking about?" I growled. 

"The government wants a specimen, at least one, of a zloor."

"A what?" 

"A zloor. A small Martian animal." 

I scowled at him. "And just why does the government want a zloor?" 

"That's a secret."

"Okay. I'll tell you another secret. Somebody else can catch the government a zloor. I've never been off Earth and I haven't any particular hankering to go now."

"I doubt you could have got one anyway." 

I said easily, "If anyone else could catch it, I could."

He reached for the doorknob, "I'd lay a thousand credits against that," he said. He began to leave. 

"Wait a minute, buddy. Are you just sounding off or have you got a thousand credits you don't care what happens to?"

He turned and faced me. "I am willing to wager a thousand credits that you can't capture a zloor."

"How big are they?" 

"About the size of a rabbit." 

I glowered at him. "They very fast, or very poisonous, or what?" 

He shrugged. "They can't run quite as fast as a common Terran hare, and I understand they're quite gentle."

"Then why haven't they been captured?"